


Innocence Lost

by lily8007



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin's first kill, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Loss of Innocence, Parenting al Ghul style, father-daughter bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 07:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19080175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily8007/pseuds/lily8007
Summary: Talia al Ghul follows in her father's footsteps ... and learns how steep the price of his approval may be.





	Innocence Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Trope Bingo Round Twelve](https://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/229696.html), the prompt 'loss of innocence'. I'm getting closer to that blackout bingo!

At twelve, Talia al Ghul was already an accomplished martial artist.  Another growth spurt left her being fitted for new clothes, her favorite dresses becoming too short for her now-coltish build.  It was only life, everyone had to go through it, but raised among her father’s followers she had no peers to compare herself against.  She had carried herself like a small adult from early childhood, modeling her behavior on the person she loved most in the world: her baba.

Although, at twelve, she’d begun to call him Father in the many languages they shared, wincing away from babyish words.  She heartily despised being treated like a child, and her tutors and trainers were in the habit of speaking to her like an adult.

Still, her heart was a child’s.  She loved to draw, and dance, and take her horse out for long rides.  Ra’s al Ghul had encouraged her love for nature and all the wild things in it, so at any given time her rooms might be home to a half-grown fennec or a cage full of pupating butterflies.  She loved learning, devouring books and diving into lessons, always striving to know more and be better.

To be worthy of her father’s love.

Not that he withheld it; Ra’s was if anything too indulgent.  But even at twelve, Talia sensed a great reserve in him, a part of himself he held away from all the world, even her.  Some unknowable space in his heart he kept locked and shuttered tight. And with a child’s greed, Talia wanted that, too.  She felt as his daughter that she deserved _all_ of his love, not a drop for anything else that was not shared with her, too.  

She might not have been able to articulate those feelings so clearly, but she was driven by them, challenging her trainers and quarreling with the guards.  Ra’s was a long-time student of the art of war, and no matter how rough-edged his followers were, Talia was unafraid of them. She even challenged some, and grew incensed when they would not spar with her, dismissing her as a little girl not worthy of their notice.

And if she were not worthy of her father’s minions, how could she be worthy of the man himself?

Most of them quickly learned the error of their ways, warned off by her teachers and the guards.  Talia grew accustomed to moving among her father’s men in a position of privilege, treated with respect by all of them.

Ra’s al Ghul traveled a great deal, and sometimes he brought Talia with him, but sometimes he left her behind in the safety of one of their compounds.  She hated to be left like inconvenient baggage, and grew sulky with her teachers. The storms of adolescent emotion were not far off, and promised to be fearsome in her case.

But when her father returned, oh, then the sun broke through the clouds and Talia was delighted again.  She heard him returning from one such trip, and ran to the doors to meet him, her heart full of all the things she wished to tell him.  She’d translated a new poem, and mastered a new series of katas, and trained her horse to turn and stop without her ever touching the bridle.

Yet a man walked at her father’s side, a tall dark-eyed man whose flinty gaze brought her up short.  And when Ra’s stepped forward to greet her, Talia watched the stranger even as she hugged her father, seeing disdain and disapproval in his eyes.

“My daughter, Talia,” Ra’s explained, and gave the man’s name, but Talia paid no attention.  She was too busy glaring at this interloper, who had the audacity to disrespect her.

“I am sure she will be a beautiful woman, when she is grown,” the stranger said.

“Beautiful and deadly,” Ra’s said, a hint of reprimand in his tone.  “She is as skilled a warrior as many twice her years.”

That put the stranger’s eyebrows up.  “Truly? I had heard you had no sons to continue your legacy, but I did not believe the daughter would take their place.”

Talia stepped forward, jutting her chin out.  “I can do anything a son could do, and most things better,” she snapped.

“I doubt that,” the stranger said, and she did not know which infuriated her more: the easy smile he gave her, as if her words did not matter, or the dismissive way he turned from her to her father.

“Beware,” Ra’s said.  “Your days of hospitality are past.  Insult my child, and you will answer for it.”

The stranger stepped back in surprise.  “You would credit a girlish whim over the alliance I can bring you?”

“My father has a dozen men like you,” Talia said coldly.  “And only one daughter. What could you possibly be worth, to a man of his stature?”

Ra’s put his hand on her shoulder, gently.  But it was too late. The stranger scoffed at her, then turned furious eyes to Ra’s.  “I did not agree to come here to bow before a child, or to listen to the yammering of women.  It seems your reputation for wisdom parts ways with the truth, old man.”

There would have been an answer, even as the stranger turned to go the guards moved to intercept him, but Talia’s temper flashed forth and she darted out from father’s restraining hand.  Placing herself in the stranger’s path, she glared at him with an echo of Ra’s al Ghul’s own ferocity. “Answer for your insult,” she demanded. “In word and gesture, or in blood.”

He looked at her, his mouth still curled in a dog-like sneer.  And then he spat on the marble floor at her feet.

Talia drew back in shock; no one had shown her such disrespect in all her life.  The stranger began to step around her, and her father might have called her back, but the insult was too great to be borne.  And she knew by her father’s example never to make a threat she did not intend to back up.

She leapt at him, intending only to bleed him enough to answer for his dishonorable words, the knife in her sleeve flashing out and scoring his forearm.  The stranger whirled, his eyes wide in surprise as Talia fell back to fighting stance, a blade in each hand now. She opened her mouth to demand an apology.

Instead he came at her, similarly armed, and his reach and strength were greater.  The stranger growled in fury, something about teaching an obstreperous girl her place, but Talia paid it no mind.  The guards were here, they would bring this fool down, and she wanted only to make her mark before they did.

Except … Ra’s spoke.  “She called the insult, let her make him pay the price,” he ordered.

Doubt trickled in.  Talia had never fought without knowing that she had the upper hand.  Her trainers were tough, but at the end of the day they were well-paid to teach her, and had no motive to hurt her more than necessary.  The guards who sparred with her knew she was their master’s daughter, and dared not do her any lasting harm.

This man snarled that he’d kill her, and show her father what a fool he was to trust in the strength of women.

Still, Talia was exquisitely trained, and she knew her speed and form were better than anyone save her father.  She baited the stranger into over-extending himself, and cut him for his folly. She pulled rapid feints that left his guard open, and cut him again for being too slow.  He grew angrier and more disbelieving as they fought on, making more mistakes, and he was bleeding from dozens of cuts when she spun past and threw her knife with hard-won accuracy.  It sunk into the muscle of his calf, just above the Achilles tendon, dropping him to the floor.

Ra’s paced forward then, regarding him.  “I will have that alliance from your younger brother, I believe,” he said thoughtfully.  “Or if he is fool enough to challenge me in vengeance, I will kill him, and take what I need from your stronghold.  It matters little to me.”

The interloper scowled, but he was beaten and knew it.  He cast his knives away. “Fine. Your little viper is more vicious than I expected.  We will make this deal, as you suggested, with the sole addition that you provide me a physician to repair the damage she’s done.”

Ra’s smiled, putting his hand on Talia’s shoulder again, this time in clear approval.  “You mistake me, I’m afraid. You were already dead when you dared to insult my child.”

Frost crept over Talia’s heart.  She’d wanted to beat him, and she had.  She’d wanted to bleed him, and she had. But not even her fierce heart had wanted to see him _killed_ , over mere words.  Men said foolish things all the time, and while they must be taught better, she’d never expected her father to kill the stranger for this transgression.

Except, Ra’s did not intend to kill him.  He unsheathed the sword at his hip, and presented its hilt to Talia.  “You won the right.”

She blinked in sudden terror.   _Her_ , kill him?  Could she do that?  Could she take that sword she coveted, the one her father never let her so much as touch, grip its ruby-pommeled hilt and slay this man?

Talia had killed - scorpions that threatened to sting her, and hares gripped fast by her falcon.  In self-defense or in mercy, she’d killed, but never in anger. Never in vengeance. And never a man.

She stared at the sword, then looked up at her father, who only raised an eyebrow.  

This was a test, she thought, he was deciding her worthiness, and she could not disappoint him.  Talia steeled herself, nodded, and took the sword.

She felt very much a child, too young for what she was about to do, as she took the few steps toward the interloper.  A memory flashed through her mind, of being five or six and wearing her father’s cape, the length of it dragging far behind her as she pretended to command armies.  This task was too big for her, Talia knew that very well.

But if she wanted to be her father’s daughter, then she would have to prove she was greater than her fears and doubts.

The stranger tried to stand, bellowing about the indignity of being killed by a woman, and Talia struck with desperate strength, gritting her teeth.  She just wanted it to be _over_ , as fast as possible.

Beheading was the cleanest death, but she hadn’t the arm strength for that, despite the wondrous sharpness of her father’s sword.  Instead the edge sliced the man’s throat deeply, and she felt it stutter across the vertebrae before swinging clear. The stranger fell silent, instantly, his vocal chords bisected, and then a low gurgling noise came from his opened throat.  He looked at her in horrified astonishment, that his life could end so quickly, and that gaze would haunt her nightmares for weeks.

He fell, seconds later, blood gushing over the floor, and Talia realized a few thick drops of it were on her face.  She gave a cry of disgust, dropping her father’s sword and scrubbing at her face with her sleeve.

“ _Talia,_ ” Ra’s said sharply, and she stopped, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.  “It was better than he deserved. And _you_ know better, my dearest daughter, than to drop a weapon.”

“Yes, Father,” she said shakily, but he smiled, and the approval in his eyes was clear.  Talia felt the horror of the killing subside a little in the light of that regard.

“Now clean the blade, my heart,” Ra’s prompted, and she picked up the sword, wiping it on the dead man’s shirt.  At least he’d fallen face down, and she didn’t have to confront the look of surprise and dismay in his glassy eyes.

Ra’s took out a handkerchief as she returned his sword, and gently wiped away the blood from her cheek.  “You did well, Talia,” he said soothingly.

She ducked her head almost shyly.  “Thank you, Father.”

The stranger whose name she hadn’t bothered to learn would be Talia’s first kill at her father’s prompting … but far from the last.  


End file.
